Abstract:
Geology Labs On-Line is a comprehensive project to develop Web-based lab activities that enhance the learning and teaching of Geology at the College and High School AP levels. These "Virtual" labs are interactive where students learn by "doing" and not just clicking and viewing.

Currently, there are three activities on-line with an additional 8 in preparation. The three "virtual" activities ... include: Virtual River - Discharge and Flooding, Virtual Dating - Isochron and Radiocarbon, and Virtual Earthquake. Several modules are in the design phase and are due to be released soon. Modules include: Virtual Coast, Virtual Groundwater, Virtual Landslide, Virtual Plate Tectonics, Virtual River-Flooding, and Virtual Volcano.

This work is supported in part by grants from the U.S. National Science Foundation and the California State University System. All opinions expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the NSF or the CSU.

Much of Virtual Dating and Virtual River consist of Java applets and various routines written in JavaScript. You must use a browser with Java and it must be Java enabled.

Virtual Dating works best with Netscape Communicator 4 or Microsoft Internet Explorer 4 with ... JavaScript enabled. It has been tested on Netscape Communicator 4.05 and Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.01 for both Windows 95/98/NT and MacOS 8.1 on the PowerPC. Minimum memory requirements are not known at this time. It has been successfully run on Windows 95 using Netscape Communicator with 16MB, and on MacOS with 32MB with the above listed browsers. If you are running Netscape on the Mac, you will have more success with Virtual Dating if you increase the Suggested Memory Size to 15000K or more. This doesn't mean that computers and settings with less memory will not work, but having sufficient memory seems to be critical.

Virtual River works best with Netscape Communicator 4.08 or higher on both Windows machines and Macs and Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 or higher on Windows machines and Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.5 or higher on Macs. It has been tested on Netscape Communicator 4.08 and 4.5 on both Windows and Mac as well as Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 SP 1 and 5.01 on Windows and Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.5 on the Mac. Testing was done on Windows 98/NT and MacOS 8.1 and 8.5 on the PowerPC. Mac users using Internet Explorer should have Apple's MRJ 2.1.4 or higher installed and have Internet Explorer configured to use it as its Java VM. If you have problems running the Java applets under Microsoft Internet Explorer for Windows, you should try getting the latest version of the Microsoft Java Virtual Machine.